


A Change in Lifestyle

by epitomizedTyrant



Category: RWBY
Genre: Ruby is bored AF, The mundane hunt AU, accidental adoption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 10:13:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10435428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epitomizedTyrant/pseuds/epitomizedTyrant
Summary: Sometimes you make good choices. Sometimes you feel like you don't have a choice.





	

How boring. Honestly, these bandits were a disappointment. Ruby thought about the last time she enjoyed a fight while jerking Crescent Rose from the chest of some faceless bandit. She thought getting to the town as the bandits attacked was a stroke of luck, maybe she could save people and get a good fight. But as she walked along the main boulevard she could see that the town was pillaged, most civilians had been killed during the initial raid, the rest pushed into small ransacked houses or taken as slaves.  

Or rather that's what the bandits would do, if there were more than ten or sixteen left in the town. Allegedly the bandits had just over one hundred fighters. She found twenty killed by the guards, the rest painted the streets behind her as she systematically killed her way through town.

A pair of bandits were in a gun store, looting of course as she passed. Not the type to leave a job unfinished the crimson cloak wandered into the shop and struck the first with her scythe depleting his aura by dragging the long blade across it and then firing a shot off into the second while pulling her scythe back, cutting the first bandit's body in half and coating the wall in blood. The remaining bandit raised his (Very nice and quite large) revolver at Ruby, but in a flurry of rose petals she was beside him.

She reached out and grabbed the gun, kicking him swiftly in the chest and shattering what little remained of his aura. He fell to his knees clutching at his caved in ribcage and Ruby flipped the handgun expertly around and blew his head off. She sighed and tucked the pistol into her belt. She could only feel five unlocked auras left in the town, three of them were in the vehicle garage two buildings over, one was bleeding out somewhere behind her after she impaled him with his own lance, and a final was ransacking the houses. That one most likely had a few goons without auras.

    Which they would soon regret. Thought Ruby as she fingered the grip of her new sidearm. She strolled out of the shop and towards the garage. She was seriously considering just tossing a fire crystal in and detonating it, but honestly these bandits weren’t worth the crystal. 

    Really was it too much to ask for a challenge these days? She loved being a hunter at first. When every fight was a challenge and each victory a triumph. Now though, it just felt like a job. A simple nine to five job. She thought as she crushed some bandits aura, and then her trachea, beneath a combat boot while cutting another's head off with her scythe.

    She knew somewhere inside that she should be focused, not so easily distracted, but she was just finding it so hard to care as she shattered the neck of the final bandit with a semblance boosted kick to the head.

    She finally walked in the direction of the last remaining Aura. maybe this one would be the boss, wouldn't that be neat. Halfway there she caught a snippet of conversation and glanced to see two bandits with locked auras standing outside an alleyway.

    “I'm not killing kids man, that's a step too far!” the first shouted

    She leveled Crescent Rose and flicked the safety off.

    “It's better than leaving her to the damned grimm!” the second said, gesturing with a rifle.

    His eyes were plastered wide open with shock as he finished yelling at the now headless body of his friend, whose gray matter painted the side of the alleyway. He barely had time to look at the assailant before a bullet strong enough to shred an atlesian paladin tore through him.

    His arm hit the ground first, followed by his head and shoulders and then the rest, quickly coating the ground in a puddle of blood and chunks of meat. Ruby’s eyes shot open when she heard a little girl scream from inside the alleyway.

    All thought was banished from Ruby’s mind as she rushed over to find a young girl cowering in the alleyway. Ruby could see she had taken a couple hits, but nothing too severe, most of the blood on her was from the two she had just killed. Oops. 

    The little green haired girl dropped to her knees and started crying. Ruby just kind of stood there. How did she kid? What do?

    “Uh, hey, kid, i'm not gonna hurt you or anything.” she tried to say soothingly as she knelt down beside the girl. “I'm here to save you actually. Sorry about, uh, splattering that guy on you.”

    The girl continued to cry. Ruby wasn’t good at kids. She was good at using a workshop, she was good at hunting grimm, she was a solid baker, she was pretty good at Grimm Souls… none of those things were going to help her in this situation. Beacon was always heavy on the hunt, and not so much on the emotional stuff.

    “Hey listen kid where are your parents?” Ruby tried. The kid sniffled a bit and then started crying harder. 

    “Hey, hey listen, nod if you can make sense of what im saying.” the child nodded through her sobs. “Take my cloak, stay in this alleyway. Hide behind that dumpster. I'll be back after i deal with the last of these bastards and I'll help you then.” Ruby said as she flung her cloak across the small, frail figure. The child crawled back into the alley as Ruby stood tall and went to hunt, a small fire lit in her soul. 

    The fire though was utterly unneeded. There were six bandits looting a house in the tiny residential area, the family shaking in a corner of the living room, under the watchful eye of some goon. Ruby had five shots in the revolver. She walked in the front door and blew the guards head off. 4. She glanced down the hall, two of the bandits were going between rooms. 3. 2. Upon hearing the gunshots two more poked their heads out of the back room. 1. 0. She stashed the revolver and pulled out Crescent Rose in short rifle mode.The last one had aura and was rushing up the stairs from the basement. As soon as the faunas man came into view Ruby shot. She barely registered everything in time to twitch away. It wasn't a bandit coming up at all, unless he was out of uniform.

    “Sorry about that.” She said to the surprised man. “Uhh...”

    “They had my family at gunpoint and told me to go downstairs. I’m a retired hunter you see.” The old man said. “Thank you for uh...” He trailed off seeing the blood splattering the walls of the hallway behind Ruby. “Taking care of the bandits.”

    Ruby waved her hand and started to leave before a thought struck her. “Do you guys have a towel you could give me?”

    The denizens of the house seemed surprised at her request before nodding sharply and running off to grab a pair of white towels. “Thanks.” Ruby nodded and leaned back a bit awkwardly. The scythe wielder felt like she was could have been good at dealing with people. 

    She wasn’t. She just didn't know what to say to these poor mourning people. How could she tell them anything comforting after their homes and livelihoods had been destroyed. She hadn't saved them. She had merely avenged them.

    She took the towels and said her thanks, then disappeared in a flurry of rose petals. Mere seconds passed before Ruby stood once more in the alley where she left the child.

    “Hello?”She called into the small alley, and after a moment the girl poked her head out from behind the dumpster. Now that the world was calm, even though it was the calm before a storm of grimm, Ruby could see her features more clearly. Two small nubs of horns were starting to grow on her forehead, and her eye were a striking green starkly contrasting the brown of her skin. She was also still covered in blood, though tears had washed small lines of it away.

    “C’mon, here I got some towels, let's get some of that blood off.” the girl silently walked over, apparently having moved on from crying to silence. Ruby really hoped that she wasn’t in shock.

    Wiping away most of the blood showed Ruby that her only injuries appeared to be cracked ribs from being kicked, most likely by the now dead bandits. Somewhere inside Ruby thought the word “hopefully” before shaking her head and returning her attention to the young girl's eyes.

    “Do you know where your parents are?” Ruby asked.

    The girl looked at her like she was going to cry.

    Shit. “Do you have a guardian? A place I can take you too? A friend's house maybe?”

    The girl shook her head this time. Maybe… no.

    “Alright, come here then.” Ruby murmured soothingly, hoisting the child up and holding her in the crook of her right arm.  The smol one put her arms around Ruby’s strong neck. Ruby’s chest felt like it was glowing.

    “How old are you anyway?” the huntress whispered, not really expecting an answer.

    “Eight. I’m eight.” a tiny hoarse voice whispers in her ear.

“What's your name?” Ruby pushed as she walked out of town.

“Cerise” She whispered.

“Alright Ceri, we’ll find you a place back in vale if you have nowhere to go here.”

    Mentally Ruby was doing somersaults trying to figure out what to do. She supposed she could stay at Ruby’s apartment for a couple days. Until she could find somewhere to go.

Night fell nearly two hours down the road. Ruby’s armload had snuggled up to her and fallen asleep at some point. It was touching Ruby’s emotions in ways she was neither familiar or comfortable with. 

Ruby didn't stop once on the entire 15 hour hike to her first campsite. She put the child in her sleeping bag set her in the watchpoint. A thick tree branch overlooking the small clearing, that she could be firmly lodged in. Ruby herself lay on the ground and slept.


End file.
